the search for the perfect web browser
is a never-ending Quest it seems like
every year I'm switching to a different
web browser just because there's
something about every web browser that's
just not perfect for me but while there
is no perfect web browser over the years
I have compiled a list of my favorite
and my least favorite web browsers that
I've ever used and in this video I'm
going to be ranking these from base tier
all the way down to spyware tier so we
can finally see once and for all which
web browsers are the best to use which
one should you be using and for this
ranking I'm going to be focusing on a
few things first off the browser needs
to be privacy respecting so I don't want
it phoning all of my data at home to
Google I don't want it collecting a
whole bunch of data about me I just want
to browse the web in peace I want it to
be fairly easy to use for normal people
I don't want to have to do a ton of
configuration to set up my browser and
have all the websites that I use most
often just completely break in the name
of privacy yes you can have a very
private browser but if it breaks the
entire internet then it's not really
what I'm looking for and finally this is
just going to be down to my opinion so
if I like the UI if I like the web
browser then I'm going to rank it higher
so this is going to be a little bit
subjective but I'm going to try to be as
objective as possible but don't get too
mad whenever I place your favorite web
browser in the bottom tier and so we
have five different tiers right here we
have the spyware tier I'm sure you can
guess which browsers are going to go
here these are going to be the browsers
that siphon all of your data to a
private company they're not open source
so you have no idea what they're doing
in the background and just generally
software that you should really stay
away from it doesn't respect your
privacy at all we have the mediocre tier
of browsers that I think are pretty bad
and I wouldn't really recommend anybody
use them we have the decent tier which I
think are browsers that are okay they're
not my favorite but if you have some
special connection to them then go ahead
and continue using them nothing wrong
with that then we have excellent tier
which is going to be browsers that are
great you can't really go wrong using
these browsers and finally the base tier
of course for the best of the best but
enough intro let's get to the ranking so
let's start off with a controversial one
Brave now I actually think that brave is
pretty good so I'm gonna come right out
of the gate and put this on excellent
tier so by default Brave is going to be
pretty secure and private so out of the
box is going to block a whole bunch of
trackers it blocks ads by default which
I think is a really good feature that
more web browsers should have it has a
bunch of sensible privacy configurations
that are already set and there are a lot
of options here so you can go through
and tweak it however you would like and
I use this browser for a long time
personally I used it probably for a year
and I didn't really have any big
complaints about it so it respects your
privacy and has pretty good defaults you
could probably even convince one of your
Normie friends to use this you could
probably download this for your grandma
it would be a better choice than Google
Chrome but of course we can talk about
Brave without getting into the
controversial Parts about it and of
course I'm talking about the whole
crypto aspect of it and brave heavily
uses its own cryptocurrency called Bat
as a feature throughout the browser and
if you opt in Brave will send you ads in
the form of push notifications so every
once in a while maybe every 20 minutes
or so when you're using your browser
you'll get a little pop-up ad usually
for some crypto thing in the corner and
every time you view an ad Brave gives
you a little bit of their Brave bucks or
their bat their cryptocurrency and so in
theory over a long time you can
accumulate some actual money doing this
wow you get paid to browse the internet
sounds great but there is the weird kind
of ethical considerations so you're
blocking ads from creators maybe you're
watching a YouTuber and you're blocking
their ads but instead of the YouTuber
getting money from the ad now Brave is
getting the money because you're viewing
their ads and brave has a system where
you can kind of redistribute the wells
back to the creators if they are
enrolled in their batch program but it's
just a little bit weird ethically so
some people are against it because of
that some people just really hate
cryptocurrency and they think that is
destroying the planet so you will see
some very polarized opening opinions on
this browser and if you don't care about
the crypto at all you can actually just
basically turn it off completely so you
can disable everything you can even
disable this little icon here this Brave
rewards thing and I know on the front
page they'll even have some sponsored
images from some advertisers and you can
turn that off it's kind of annoying but
you can't turn it off there's a little
Show sponsored image box right here you
can turn off and to be honest I use the
bat system for a while I got their
cryptocurrency I probably got like I
don't know 40 bucks of their fake
imaginary internet money but I stopped
using it because I kind of thought it
was pointless I don't really care that
much about their cryptocurrency so you
can just turn that off but of course if
you want to throw any of your imaginary
internet money at me you can just
throwing that out there but I think that
brave is a good choice for a web browser
even if you don't care about the whole
cryptocurrency thing but if you do then
I guess that makes it even better next
up let's talk about Firefox
okay I might get a little bit of hate
for this but I am just putting vanilla
Firefox in decent here I know tons of
people love Firefox but out of the box I
think the vanilla Firefox experience is
actually very bad so let's just actually
see what I'm talking about and I've done
a whole other video ranting about
Firefox you can watch that if you want
to but I'm gonna try not to rant too
much here but they just have a ton of
useless I guess bloat you would call it
a bunch of useless features that I never
use I have this Firefox view which you
have to disable they have pocket which
is a service that collects your personal
information even though they claim to be
a privacy browser they have a bunch of
analytics all over the browser like I
know in their add-ons page they have
Google analytics running in the
background collecting information about
you and just a whole bunch of telemetry
I just really do not like the default
out of the box experience with Firefox
every time I try to use this for normal
use I end up just disabling half of the
web browser it seems like and it just
takes me like a half hour to set it up
every single time just dealing with all
the nuisances
on Firefox and that's why I don't really
like it out of the box it also defaults
to Google as a default search engine
which I get that they get a lot of money
from Google but it's still a really
baffling choice for a privacy focused
web browser and so while of course I
think this is better than a lot of
Alternatives like Google Chrome I don't
think that it's the best web browser to
use but you might be wondering why I
have another version of Firefox down
here so this one I would say is hardened
Firefox
you might be wondering what is that well
it's the same thing as Firefox but with
a custom user.js and a user.js file is
basically a settings file that will
allow you to configure a whole bunch of
different options about your Firefox and
really just take the privacy and
security to the next level so although
it's not easy to turn this off from the
settings if you kind of get your hands
dirty then you can disable all of this
in the options and once you do all that
you will get an experience more like
this which I think is much better so you
don't get any of this pocket nonsense
you don't get a whole bunch of useless
features that you don't really need
you have very sensible default
configuration options here for privacy
and security and there are a few
different user.js files that I would
recommend so there is the arc and fox
user.js which is probably the most
popular and it disables a lot of the
Telemetry that Mozilla has in Firefox
and it's going to make it much more
private but I don't even like this one
that much to be honest because it
doesn't disable a lot of the annoyances
I have about Firefox like the pocket
integration and a lot of the Annoying
features that I don't really use so I
actually prefer to use this repository
right here by narcill
this user.js here it's a fork of the arc
and fox project but in my opinion it
just has some better defaults and do
note that if you do use this you will
have to make a few tweaks to it because
it does break a few things so for
instance in my user.js file I turn off
resist fingerprinting which makes you
more Anonymous but breaks a lot of
things on the internet I also enabled
DRM I still watch Netflix I know what an
army but once you do this you might want
to enable a few other options like it
turns off Firefox sync by default maybe
you want that and maybe you want a few
other options you probably want to go
into the settings and enable update
add-ons automatically you probably don't
want to have to manually update these
and you'll probably want to disable
deleting cookies and site data whenever
Firefox is closed you'll probably want
to keep the history not clear the
history every time but it does come with
very privacy respecting defaults but
it's probably a little bit too much for
most people you probably care about
convenience too so those are just a few
things that you probably need to change
but after you do that then Firefox
becomes a really great and usable
browser one more thing I just wanted to
add if you want a user.js file that
doesn't break everything I would use
better Fox right here I'll leave a link
in the description as well but this
enables a bunch of privacy and security
features and disables a lot of the
Firefox annoyances but without enabling
some of the more advanced options that
may break a lot of things about your
browser or the internet so if you're
more of a normal person that cares about
privacy but not that much to the point
where it breaks a lot of things I would
use this I'll probably do another video
on this in the future going into more
detail about how to set up this user.js
on Firefox but before you do this with
Firefox I'd think that it's a really bad
experience and after that I think that
is one of the best browsers out there
so that's why I'm putting hardened
Firefox into base tier once you remove
all of the Mozilla Croft I think it's
one of the best browsers out there and
it's actually what I personally use for
my daily driver so it doesn't require a
little bit of manual configuration but
once you do that then it's pretty easy
to use and they are just so different
that I didn't feel right just putting it
on one tier or the other because the
difference is very big in my opinion
next let's talk about Epiphany or gnome
web I'm putting this straight in
mediocre tier
and the only reason I even have this on
the tier list
I don't think that many people actually
use this but there was a Linux
Experiment video
I think a year or two ago where he was
saying I'm quitting Firefox and I'm
moving to gnome web instead
and of course a month after he released
that video he said I used it for a month
and it was terrible everything was
Breaking All the Time websites were not
displaying correctly it was super slow
and leggy and this is the exact
experience that I've had using this so I
used this before whenever I was on gnome
and the experience was just really bad
even now I downloaded it again for this
video and some websites just wouldn't
even work I tried to load YouTube and it
would just get completely stuck and
crash the browser and every single
movement in this browser feels like it's
coated with molasses with all due
respect to the gnome team I don't really
think that this is browser ready for
prime time I don't think it is a great
browser to use and I don't recommend
anybody to use it I guess the nicest
thing that I could say about it is that
the UI is kind of nice if you like
gnomes UI which I do have a soft spot in
my heart for then you might appreciate
that but that is really the only thing
that it has going for it I don't
recommend anybody to use that and next
up let's go over Google Chrome you know
where this is going it's going straight
in the spyware tier if you're using
Google Chrome just stop because what
Google is doing with this is just
collecting all of your data on every
website you visit
it could be collecting so much more
information than that we don't even know
because it's closed source and you can't
actually see the source code so it could
be doing all kinds of Nefarious things
in the background Google is generally an
evil company that you shouldn't trust
don't worry it used to be me I used to
use Google Chrome a few years ago before
I started using Linux because oh it's so
cool you can sync your Google account so
when you get a new computer wow all your
settings are right there you can do all
that with Firefox and a lot of other
browsers and even if you like chromium
there are much better chromium-based
browsers out there Brave is one of them
if you want something like Google
Chromium but without all the creepiness
of Google tracking your whereabouts all
over the Internet no thanks so next
let's talk about icecat icecat is
another Firefox clone but with a few
differences so icecat is what you want
to use if you are a free software
extremist and of course I'm not talking
about software that is zero dollars I'm
talking about free as freedom and if you
know anything about free software this
generally means software that is open
source that you can view the source code
just to see that is not doing anything
malicious with the code executing on
your machine and so this was made by
free software purists and a problem that
they have with the open web well you can
just read it here if you want to this is
an article by Richard stallman of course
it's by Richard stallman about non-free
JavaScript and so JavaScript is used
everywhere on the internet it is used
for any kind of scripting and most
JavaScript that you're going to run from
the Internet is going to be non-free is
not going to be open source you can't go
in and inspect the source code and see
what it's doing to you so if you log on
to google.com you're not really sure
what information they're collecting
about you and that is the problem that
Richard stallman outlines here he
doesn't want to use any non-free
software or code on his machine at all
including JavaScript so what this web
browser does is it includes a whole
bunch of extensions
most notably Libre JS which block any
non-free JavaScript on your computer
so obviously as you can expect this is
going to break a lot of websites because
tons of websites especially websites
that are more like web applications they
use a ton of JavaScript in the
background and they're just going to
completely break a whole lot of websites
that you use all the time like we can
just see this if you go to reddit.com or
youtube.com like most of the website is
just not going to work half of it's not
going to load and they do kind of have
some workarounds for this so if you go
to something like youtube.com
you'll see how you're actually not going
to YouTube You're Going to invidious
which is a privacy and respecting
YouTube front end and you can still
watch all of your favorite YouTubers on
here let's watch mental Outlaw and this
is going to work fine because it is
using free Javascript but of course
normal YouTube which collects a whole
bunch of data about you is not going to
work half of the time and same with some
websites like Reddit or Twitter if you
try to go there then it'll automatically
redirect you to a privacy respecting
alternative or not even alternative this
is just a different front end so you can
still browse your favorite subreddits I
guess so you might like that as a
workaround and probably for some other
websites they would work fine if they're
pretty simple
but some other websites you might just
have to add to the white list here
and you probably will be adding a lot to
the white list so I would only pick
icecat if you really care about this
whole Libre JS thing and if you don't
really care about it and you're just
going to White list most of the websites
that you visit on a day-to-day basis
it's not really worth it to use so it's
not bad but I don't really see the point
in it I'm not really going to use
libre.js you might be interested in that
but not me so that's why I'm gonna rank
it in just a decent tier I think it's
okay if you're truly in love with the
vision that they have with this web
browser then go ahead but even some of
the decisions are a little bit
questionable here like they have an
entire extension about calculating US
postage because the United States Postal
Service their website does not work if
you're only using free JavaScript
and so this is a workaround but how
often are you calculating postage in the
United States I don't even live in the
United States so why do I have this why
couldn't this just be optional I don't
know it's kind of baffling but it is
kind of funny I guess and there are a
few other extensions here that are
mostly just more workarounds for Libre
and JS so this is a workaround for
libgen.me if you even use this website
this fixes uh maybe some issues with
circs if you even use that website so
again I probably wouldn't use this but
you can check it out next up is librew
Wolf so librew wolf when I pull it up
here it might kind of look familiar
because it kind of looks like hardened
Firefox
so it's Firefox without all of the bloat
that Mozilla adds to it and that's
basically what it is so if we look
around here is basically Firefox without
pocket and a bunch of Mozilla Telemetry
and just has much better privacy
configurations by default there's no
Google analytics in the settings page
and it is going to be very private and
secure by default now the same thing
with hardened Firefox it is probably
going to be a little bit too restrictive
and so you probably want to enable some
things
like you probably don't want to delete
cookies and site data whenever librew
wolf is closed you probably want to
retain your logins most normal people I
think would want to do that you probably
want to remember your history and there
are a few other privacy settings but
they have this little librew wolf
section right here where you can kind of
customize the more advanced privacy
settings
so some people may want this enable
resist fingerprinting which does
increase your privacy but like I said it
breaks the web so you can uncheck this
if you want and you don't have to go
through some weird settings page like
you would in Firefox so in Firefox you
either have to install some user.js file
which maybe some normal people wouldn't
know how to do that or you have to go
through this weird scary menu where you
have to go through a bunch of random
settings right here in order to actually
customize this stuff and it's probably
not something most people are going to
do so I really like the fact that they
have this menu right here and you can go
through and just see if you want these
options or not so it disables Firefox
sync by default but that is something
that a lot of people might like so you
can just easily enable that you have to
restart librew wolf but that's fine you
can update add-ons automatically which
is something that most people probably
want if your super privacy focused you
may not want this but that's why I like
librew because it gives you the option
if you're just a normal person and if
you want to configure this so I would
highly recommend this browser it look at
this it even comes with ublock origin by
default I mean could it get any better
you'd like origin is probably the only
extension that a lot of you people need
doesn't come included with Firefox but
it does with librew wolf another nice
touch thanks librew Wolf but one of the
only things that a lot of people don't
like about Libre wolf is that it updates
behind Firefox so this is a Firefox Fork
and so
if Firefox updates then they have to
update librew wolf after that and so you
may be a day or two behind on security
updates because librew wolf is generally
pretty fast whenever Firefox releases a
new release then Libre wolf is usually
right behind maybe a day or two or three
so if you really care about getting the
absolute latest insecurity then that
might be an issue for you but probably
for most people being a day or two
behind vanilla Firefox is not going to
be a big deal and I highly recommend you
use librew wolf it is a very good
browser and I would say right behind
hardened Firefox because it's almost the
same thing it's just a little bit easier
you don't have to dig into the user.js
file yourself so I don't know if I would
recommend it for normal people because
they probably don't care about their
privacy that much but if you want a very
privacy respecting browser that doesn't
take too much to set up I would
definitely recommend librew wolf
next up let's go over Microsoft edge of
course you know where this is going to
end up it's going to go in spyware tier
this is basically just the same thing as
Google Chrome except instead of sending
all of your information to Google it
sends it all to Microsoft which is not
any better I don't want any evil
Corporation harvesting all my personal
data of course it's closed Source also
so I highly recommend you not use this
browser and you know what let's take
Opera right here and put it in the same
tier I'm sorry Opera fans but Opera is
also closed source so they do claim to
care about privacy a little bit but the
browser is closed source so you can't
really see if they're collecting which
and what data about you and if you start
up Opera it does make a whole bunch of
unsolicited requests to Opera what data
is it sending to Opera I don't really
know and some people really dislike this
browser because oh no it was bought by
an evil Chinese company not a Chinese
company anything but that as if sending
your data to Americans is so much better
than sending it to Chinese I don't want
my data being sent anywhere so I'm just
not going to use any of these browsers I
don't recommend Opera I don't even
recommend their gaming browser you've
probably seen this in some YouTube ads
or something they do have a gaming
browser and no I don't recommend it you
can be a Pro Gamer and use something
like hard and Firefox next up let's go
to Pale Moon
so pale moon is yet another Firefox
clone with a Twist let's pop it open
right here and right away you might
begin a blast from the past what is this
UI so this is actually a fork of the old
UI of Firefox so if you were using
Firefox like I don't know five or ten
years ago it's about from that era and
you really like the old style of Firefox
back when it was so customizable and you
can do all these different things I
don't know a lot of people just have
this Nostalgia for old Firefox I just
don't see it I actually like the modern
Firefox UI and you can still customize
it if you don't like it for whatever
reason I just don't understand these
people who go on Reddit and complain
every time Firefox adjusts a few pixels
of the address bar there's always some
angry people who are saying they're
going to quit using Firefox immediately
anytime their design changes
um but enough of this rant I mean Pale
Moon is fine so it's basically an old
version of Firefox but of course it's
still maintained so it's not going to be
like a security nightmare they do have
some weird questionable designs like
this really stupid homepage right here
if you look under the hood it's making a
bunch of requests to Google
and it has a bunch of useless websites
on here that you would never use in a
million years why would you ever shop at
the Home Depot online I don't know
there's an ad right here telling you to
become a pro for only 20 a year
by the way there's a million other start
Pages like this you don't need to pay 20
a year for this and I'm sure this is
some deal they worked out with them to
get some money I mean if you really want
to sell out you can uh donate link is in
the description just so you guys know
but of course you can disable this and
it's going to have some privacy and
respecting options you can go into the
settings this is the old style of doing
it I don't know I think it's okay A lot
of people still like it but I don't
really see a whole lot of reason to use
this if you're not really into the UI
like me this UI is just doing nothing
for me but I don't know if it reawakens
some deep Nostalgia deep within your
soul then I guess you can check this out
the extensions are just okay too you're
not going to be getting modern Firefox
extensions there is still like an
extension repository with some ad
blocking plugins and things like that
you can even click here on the home page
wow I guess it is useful for something
and you can go to extensions here there
are some privacy and security and you
can download some Adblock
or something like that I'm sure this
works fine
I just don't really see the point in
using this there are much better options
out there so I'm just going to put this
one in decent tier next up is cute
browser another very beloved browser and
this browser is very different than a
lot of browsers I've talked about it is
not just another Firefox clone here is
the browser you might be thinking uh
where is everything where's the address
bar where's the back button this is a
keyboard Centric browser so if you are
one of those weirdos who uses vim and
you have tiling window manager and you
only use the keyboard and you never
touch the mouse for anything then you
are going to love this browser probably
it is basically the Vim version of a
browser so if I want to open up a
website I can just run o to open and I
can go to
some website right here
and voila now I am there I can open a
new tab with
capital O
all of your favorite Vim bindings are
here
so if I got a I don't know
old.reddit.com you can go to Reddit you
can go up and down with uh J and K Keys
you can scroll down with Ctrl d control
U you can jump around to different links
with f
now a bunch of characters have appeared
on screen and we can navigate to some
dumb political discussion on Reddit by
typing in the characters next to the
link and now we are there and I did all
of that without even touching my mouse
that is pretty cool and so if you know
the Vim Keys then you can navigate
basically the entire web without using
your mouse at all that can make it very
appealing for power users if you want to
learn all of the key bindings you can
just run help this will show you all of
the key bindings and of course this is
all configurable this is a very
configurable browser and it doesn't even
have a settings page what it has is a
text file so if you use a tiling window
manager and you're used to opening up
your dot config files then it's going to
have a file in there where you can
configure it in Python that is language
this browser is written in and so it
gives you a very cool experience that is
very different from almost every other
browser but with how cool I think this
browser is there are a few issues
first off it does have ad blocker
support out of the box by the ad
blocking that it has is not very
Advanced and so
across some websites you'll run into
some issues where it doesn't completely
block it or on some websites like
YouTube or some video websites the ad
will just not be blocked at all so if I
was to go to YouTube and if I was to
click on something then it would just
play ads like normal this is a big issue
that people have had in this browser for
a long time that's because it's not
using ublock origin or anything like
that under the hood it's basically just
a hosts file and so you can't really get
any super in-depth ad blocking with this
or tracker blocking which is something
you might be worried about as well so
it's going to do a worse job at tracker
blocking as well than something like
ubloc origin and the best fix that
people have come up with to get around
the YouTube issue is just to play the ad
really fast and automatically click on
the skip add button which I guess works
with it but it's probably not what most
people want and there are some other
cool features that you can use as a
workaround like if you want you can even
open videos in MPV in your native video
player that you have on your system you
can do that that's because the scripting
capabilities with python that you can
use here
it goes pretty deep and you can do a lot
with this browser that you couldn't with
others so I don't actually use this
browser much so I can't show you video
clips of all that but I'm sure if you
check out any other video in cute
browser you'll see all these features
and it might be worth it to you but
that's not all that's wrong with cute
browser in my experience at least it's
going to be a little bit slower than
Firefox or chromium unfortunately
especially if you have a lower end PC
that is going to be something you have
to deal with it's going to be a little
bit slower to use it's definitely not a
bad browser by any means and I think
this niche of a keyboard-based browser
is not really seen anywhere else I know
you can install like the Vim plug-in in
Firefox or chromium but it's just not
the same so I definitely respect anybody
who uses this but in my opinion there's
just a few too many little small things
that just annoy me with this browser for
me to use it full time
so I'm putting this in decent tier I
think it's okay next up is on Google
Chromium I really like this browser I'm
putting it straight in the excellent
tier I use this for a long time actually
probably almost a year I made a whole
video on this browser I really fell in
love with it and let me just show you it
right here so it is basically Google
Chrome without all of the Google and
even just the base chromium it comes
with a whole bunch of callbacks to
Google anyway so on Google Chromium just
strips everything out of the browser
that could possibly send any molecular
data to Google and I really like it for
that and the design here is really
simple uh if you've ever used Google
Chrome is probably what you would expect
but it has a very minimal
user interface there is not that many
options compared to something like
Firefox but it isn't that customizable
so if you don't really like Google's
design decisions on Google Chromium adds
a few flags and options that you can
kind of use to override Google's design
decisions but at the end of the day you
kind of have to follow their idea for
what the browser should be so even
though you don't have any Google
spookiness inside of here it is still
basically Google Chrome love it or hate
it so do keep that in mind and another
unknowing thing about this that is
preventing me from putting it in the top
tier is that these add-ons by default
since you have to get them from the
Google Chrome Store and this on Google
Chromium doesn't want to talk to Google
at all you have to kind of manually
install these plugins or you can use
this plug-in right here to manage your
plugin I know browser extension to
manage your browser extensions that's a
little bit weird but you can update your
plugins like this
so you just have to manually do this and
every time there's an update you have to
click through here and manually update
all of these it's a little bit annoying
but it is the workaround that you have
to use in order to get around the Google
store so it's not a big deal especially
if you're like me and you don't use that
many extensions you can still go to the
Google Chrome Store and install an
extension like you normally would but
the way of updating this is a little bit
weird I did a whole video on this if you
want to check it out I definitely think
it's worth your time but just keep in
mind that it has a few limitations like
this okay it's time for another
controversial one Vivaldi I know a lot
of people really love this browser it
has one of the most rapid fan bases on
the internet I don't know why but it
does
well actually I can kind of see why
let's open up Vivaldi right here and
Vivaldi is pretty unique in that it does
what basically no other web browser can
do it just has a ton of crazy features
that you would never expect a web
browser to have essentially it has page
tiling we have to open up a couple of
tabs and then click this we can tile
these vertically or horizontally so now
we have one window but we have two
different pages right here that is kind
of cool I guess it has a take a break
option if you're addicted to the
internet and you need to take a break
for a while it can automatically time
you out if that's something you want it
has a panel of a whole bunch of things
you can do you can put some shortcuts on
here like Mastodon you can access your
history and your bookmarks from all this
your reading list your notes different
Windows it really has the kitchen sink
here you can add more here
like your favorite websites it even has
a clock here if your system clock isn't
enough basically what Vivaldi tries to
do is it tries to be like an operating
system posing as a web browser you can
just do so much with this it also blocks
ads and trackers by default which is
pretty good I haven't explored this too
extensively but from what I can tell it
does a pretty good job uh it has all
these useless websites by default which
is kind of lame but it's not a big deal
it has Bing by default as a search
engine which again isn't that great but
you can easily change that I guess you
have this giant settings panel if you
want this and Vivaldi really has so much
it has even a male client in here it has
a calendar here it even has RSS reader
in here
so you can really just make this browser
your everything I guess once you use
this browser you'll never use another
app on your computer that's kind of the
idea of it for me this is just way too
maximalist I don't need 90 of these
features but I guess some power users
might enjoy this so I definitely
understand why a lot of people like this
browser but let's talk about privacy and
security so Vivaldi claims to be very
privacy respecting and they have all
these settings in here to help protect
your privacy a block trackers and ads as
I've said by default so that sounds
pretty good but probably the biggest
drawback of Vivaldi is it is not open
source now you may have heard that
Vivaldi is open source and that's partly
true so Vivaldi is partly open source so
they released the modifications that
they made the chromium so they're using
chromium under the hood to render the
pages
but the UI all of this right here is
closed Source you have no access to that
and of course they have good reasons as
to why they don't open source it they
have this long sob story on their
website explaining how they don't want
someone to Fork them and just copy all
of their work and become more popular
than them that's one of their main
reasons for not open sourcing it
but unfortunately I just can't bring
myself to completely trust a browser
that is closed source
I know only the UI is closed Source but
that is one of the most important parts
of the browser the part that you
directly interact with and so I know
they claim to be all of our privacy but
when it's closed Source I can't really
see what data they're collecting about
me and I have to just trust them
I don't want to just trust them I'm
sorry Vivaldi I'm sure that the people
who developed this I'm sure their hearts
are in the right place
but I just can't really give it a higher
grade than this
because at least for me the closed
source is a big deal breaker and of
course this is going to be a much better
choice than something like Google Chrome
you're not sending all of your data to
an evil company but I'm just going to
put this in mediocre tier it was open
source it would probably be higher but I
guess I'm just a little bit of a free
software Zealot so if you're a giant
Vivaldi fan please don't leave a dislike
on this video it's just my opinion guys
but finally let's go into our last one
waterfox
what is waterfox waterfox is yet another
Firefox clone and it's actually pretty
good let's just put this on excellent
tier right here so this is waterfox like
I said it is a Firefox clone and it has
some pretty good defaults out of the box
so it doesn't come with all the Croft
that Mozilla Firefox has that's one of
the reasons why I don't like Firefox but
this is a lot more Bare Bones it doesn't
have all the crazy features that Firefox
does it does have a few so it has
Firefox sync if you really like Firefox
sync capabilities then you can sign in
sync your Mozilla account and get all of
your settings from Firefox it has some
pretty good privacy respecting defaults
it's not perfect but it's probably going
to be enough for most people it's
definitely better than firefox's
defaults because it does turn off a lot
of Firefox Telemetry it's not really
that much of a privacy browser they
claim to be more about speed than
anything
so probably a lot of the Telemetry that
they're disabling is just to make the
browser run faster which either way I
guess it works out it's fine and by
default the search is Bing which is not
great but you can pretty easily change
it to start page or something else
as basically all I have to show you
about waterfox it is not that much
different from Firefox it's just Firefox
with a different coat of paint and a
little bit different defaults
but between waterfox and Firefox you're
not going to see a big difference
but I do have to talk about one of the
things that a lot of people really
dislike about waterfox and that is that
it is owned by an advertising company oh
no so here the company that actually
owns this and coincidentally it is the
same company that bought out start page
a few years ago which is another privacy
respecting search engine
and would you look at that right on the
home page they're connecting people with
advertisers at scale so now you just
know that the entire browser is
compromised right
well we do have to keep in mind that it
is still open source so you can still go
into the source code and you can make
sure that this company is not phoning a
whole bunch of data back to them
that is probably going to be your main
concern they're going to harvest all
your data and send it to advertisers but
they haven't done that and you can go
through the source code and verify that
they haven't really done anything too
creepy with it and so when this news
first broke it was a huge deal everybody
was making a big deal about this but
this was a couple of years ago and not
really much has changed at all
so I don't really see the big problem
with using this
I definitely understand if you might be
turned off by it being run by an
advertising company but I just don't
think it's as big of a deal as everybody
seems to think it is but I'm kind of
leaving this one up to you you can take
it or leave it I think it's pretty good
but you're not really going to get that
much more out of this browser than you
would with just a properly configured
Firefox but I guess this is good if
you're kind of lazy and you don't want
to remove the pocket and all of the
Annoying Firefox features it could be
something to check out so that is it
that is my browser tier list hopefully
this gives you a good idea of which
browser that you should personally use I
think that any of these in the top two
rows you can't really go wrong with and
you can even get by with using some of
these These are pretty good they're just
not my personal favorite so do I think
that any of these are the perfect
browser and I will use them for the rest
of time obviously not but for the time
being I am pretty happy with hardened
Firefox and with the right user.js file
it doesn't really require that much
configuration to to set up so I guess if
you want a recommendation after this
video is finished as to what you should
do that's my recommendation and if you
want a browser that's easy enough for
your grandma to pick up I would pick
brave because it has ad blocking out of
the box and you don't have to tweak a
bunch of settings to get it working for
normal people maybe just disable the
crypto or maybe your grandma is going to
start asking you is this the Bitcoin
that I've been hearing so much about but
let me know in the comments if I'm
completely off base and of course feel
free to have your own browser wars in
the comments but this is just my opinion
hopefully it helps some of you maybe
pick a browser and to just stop using
Google Chrome just don't do it there's
so many better options out there
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